Sarevok

Red is not red

Do you ever wonder if other people see the same things as you do? If I look at a ripe apple I see a red, shiny and round object. Others would also see the same shape but what about the color? Is your version of "red" the same as their version? I mean, since the day we were born we were trained to see red as "red". But the thing is, our brains are not wired the same way. Their red may be "green" in your perspective. Does it make sense?

Think of our brain as a machine that learns. It was trained by repetition, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, reinforcement, punishment and more learning methods that even today our Machine Learning technology hasn't even developed yet. We were exposed to lots of data and input and we have had at least 5 years to interpret and learn the basics. Imagine if from the start we were told that an apple is a banana. When you grow up you would be pretty sure that an apple is a banana since that is how it was engraved in your mind. Now try to shift this thinking to colors. Colors, unlike shapes is free for interpretation. Meaning only one sensory organ can interpret it (eyes) while shapes are interpreted by two (eyes and skin for touching). This means that we have no other way to verify if what our eyes see is really true and the colors I see may not be exactly the same colors as what you see.